


Gold Heart/Cold Hands

by Oboeist3



Series: I Used To Have Short Hair [8]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Original Character(s), Trans Character, Trans Eliot, a bunch of little shits for the most part, help i accidentally adopted 40 children: the fic, the ot3 is there but not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oboeist3/pseuds/Oboeist3
Summary: When Hardison tries to trick Eliot into going to therapy, he ends up finding something better. He'll never be a dad, but that doesn't mean he can't have kids.





	Gold Heart/Cold Hands

When Hardison sends Eliot to go pick something up for the brewpub, he's already suspicious, because Hardison is obsessed with delivery and will pay absurd amounts for the convenience (read ability to be lazy), and whoever is present will bicker with him over giving a tip. When he asks why Hardison can't go and retrieve it himself, he starts a near endless list of his current woes, and Eliot decides it's less work to go and get the damn thing.

He follows the blip of the GPS on his phone, it's within walking distance, which is simultaneously annoying, he really could have done this himself, and relieving, because at least it'll be something quick. It's some kind of community building, the ones with lots of rooms and narrow hallways. As he walks up a fairly steep flight of stairs, he notices a plethora of veterans, some with their dog tags on, others looking uncomfortable in their civilian clothes. His suspicions are confirmed as they all start to file towards room 629, where the 'item' supposedly is, and sees the sign on the door, "Group Therapy for Veterans."

Hardison has made it known that he thinks Eliot should be in therapy, that all three of them should be in therapy. That they should talk out their childhood trauma, their adulthood trauma, get coping mechanisms and perhaps medication. It's a sweet idea in theory, but Eliot knows better. People in their profession need a little dysfunction, a healthy dose of paranoia. Having a stable state of mental being will be to their detriment more than anything.

Still, something keeps him from marching out immediately. Hardison had done his research. He didn't try and put him in a single room with an therapist he can't possibly trust. He'd gotten a therapeutic approach that was closest to something he might actually be ok with, people who understood, at least in part, the things he had been through. It was compromise, something Hardison really struggled with, and rejecting it outright didn't seem fair. That being said, he still didn't want to go.

Eliot's solution was simple. He would stay in the building for the allotted time, giving the illusion he attended, and instead camp out in one of the other rooms. Given that he was almost certainly being tracked, it was best to stay as close to the actual meeting as possible. A quick peek into 628 revealed it empty, and so he made it his hideout.

It was a nice enough space, room 628. There was a long table with around thirty plastic chairs around it in the middle of the room, and other pressed against the wall, littered with arts and crafts supplies and a box of free condoms. There was a living room type area with ratty furniture and a dilapidated rug, a TV with a few video game consoles wired into it, a bookshelf with spine-worn books and no sense of order. Eliot felt a little strange, being in a space that was so clearly for youth, and in his mix of anxiety and boredom, started organizing the bookshelf.

He was about thirty minutes in when a woman strode into the room with a box, startling at the sight of him. She was short, plump, with brown crew cut hair with streaks of gray. Her glasses were nearly perfectly circular, and she pushed them up on her face before speaking to him, a bit of Texas in her voice.

"Sir, you're not supposed to be in here. We have a meeting soon." she declares, placing the box on the long table in the middle of the room. There's an unevenness to her gait that suggests injury, and he finds himself pulling out a chair for her to sit in. She does so, but the stern expression remains.

"I'm a volunteer." he says, before he can even think about why that's a terrible idea. He's good with kids, as a general rule, but he doesn't even know what he's signing up for.

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?" she says, hostility melting away like ice in the sun. "You should have met me in my office though, not here."

"My bad." he says, and she hand waves the apology.

"You can fill out the paperwork afterword, right now I need all the hands I can get. Especially someone as strong looking as yourself. Help me put up the flags, will you?" she says, pulling two folded pieces of fabric from the box, before pointing to the empty hooks on the wall.

"Yes ma'am." he agrees, and unfolds the flags. A rainbow stares back at him, as well as an all too familiar pattern of light pinks and blues and white.

Well, at least he has some relevant experience.

* * *

The woman, whose name is Nancy, gets him to retrieve snacks and print out of the sign in sheet and generally prepare the room for visitors, while informing him of all the details the website won't tell him. "As you know, PAQ is a group for LGBTQ youth, ages 13 to 17, which means there's more drama than anyone knows what to deal with. Sympathy and support are always available, but I'd do my best to keep out of the details. Don't try to keep track of dating, either, you'll get a headache." Eliot remembers when he had to pretend to be a gym teacher at the private school, the way rumors had proliferated at an alarming rate.

"Sometimes we have a speaker or some sort of activity, other times we just leave them to their own devices. Tonight is game night, which is basically the latter. At the end, we split them into smaller groups and have discussion, let them vent their problems. If anything abusive comes to light, we're obligated to report it to the authorities, but if they're willing to talk about it in detail, we've probably already tried. We're lucky, up here, that the cases are few. I used to work in Houston, it was easier to find a rotten family than a good one." Nancy says, her expression clouding over like a thunderstorm, a fierce, burning anger. She shakes it off quickly.

"Of course, unless they're in danger or a danger to others, everything said is confidential. Though what you could do with a teenager's problems, I can't think. Oh, and you'll have to introduce yourself at the beginning of the meeting. While you're not obligated to do so, saying what part of the community you belong to with make them more likely to trust you. You'll also need to make a tag with your name and pronouns. All the kids wear one as well, makes it easier for the transgender kids. Any questions?"

"How many kids are there?" he asks, looking at the many places to sit. It seems like a lot of potential people for only the two of them to look over, even if some of them were almost adults.

"It depends. Usually we have at least fifteen, but on game night, usually closer to forty. They're not troublemakers though, this place is special to them. For some, it's the only place they feel safe being themselves. They wouldn't jeopardize that by being stupid." Eliot nods. The logic is sound, and even though this was all an accident, he's grateful that he's part of this.

There's a knock at the door, if you could even call it that, the tiniest of echoes. A kid with shaggy brown hair and a soft demeanor pokes their head in, looks at Eliot with wide eyes. They can't be older than fourteen. Nancy smiles at them, beckons them to enter.

"Come on in, Allie. Make sure you sign in and pick up your name tag. If you'd be a dear, could you bring the supplies for a new one? We've got fresh meat." Nancy says, and that makes Allie smile, just a little bit. A glance at the name tag reveals rather elegant looking flowers and she/her pronouns.

"Here you go." she says, a little croak in her words from trying to pull the pitch upward, and she flushes as she hurries over the couch, pulling out her phone and staring at it intently. 'She's a shy one.' Nancy mouthes, and Eliot starts work on his name tag. It's simple, his name and he/him in big block letters, and after a moment, he grabs a pink and light blue colored pencil, copies the flag he hung up on the wall. His proportions aren't quite right, but it's recognizable.

More and more youths start flowing in, signing the sheet and untangling their name tags from a box with some effort. Most of them go and sit on the couches and chairs, pulling up a video game, and one of them holds Allie's hand, making her blush. The first one to sit at the long table, Bruce, pulls out a DS, and his terrible posture reminds Eliot of Hardison.

"You're going to get a crick in your back, sitting like that." he tells the teen, and Bruce sighs and moves into a slighter better position. A glance at his screen reveals he's playing Pokemon, running around a square in the dark green grass.

"My partner is playing White 2. He started out with the grass one, uh...Snivy, and got stuck at the second gym." he tells him, only kind of understanding what he's saying. He'd never been much good at video games. Bruce scoffs.

"Of course he did, Snivy's terrible. It's the worst Grass Pokemon starter to date."

"Which one did you choose?"

"Tepig. The fact that he becomes Fire/Fighting isn't ideal with the amount of Psychic types in Unova, but I'm going to get a Frillish to help balance things out. In the meantime I'm using a Purrloin." he says, showing Eliot his team. It's clear he's got expertise in the area, even if he has no idea what it means.

"Sounds like a plan." Eliot says, and thankfully Nancy calls the room to attention before he can get dragged further into a world he's got minimal knowledge of.

"Alright y'all, before you get back to your games, I'd like you to meet our newest volunteer. Why don't you introduce yourself?" Dozens of eyes land on Eliot, and it's strange how nervous that makes him, when he's been through far more dangerous experiences without blinking. Teenagers are just scary, no matter who you are.

"Hey. My name's Eliot, he/him pronouns. I'm thirty-five, and I work in a brewpub." Not technically a lie. "I'm a bisexual trans man." He adds, feeling strange saying it so directly. He can count the number of times he's called himself trans on his fingers, because he's been stealth for over a decade. Some of the kids look at him with wonder, the ones with too big shirts and soft faces, and he knows it was worth it to see the hope in their eyes.

Afterwords, the room goes back to their activities, but one of the boys tugs at his sleeve, holding up a box.

"Mr. Eliot, do you want to play Apples to Apples with us? It's not as good as Cards Against Humanity, but we can't play that here because we're kids or whatever."

"Sure, how do you play?"

The boy, Cam according to his name tag, tells him about the rules and passes out cards to seven other people at the long table, including Bruce, although he doesn't seem particularly invested in the outcome. At first, Eliot can't win for the life of him, suddenly immersed in the humor of teens, but wins his first green card by placing 'my love life' down for 'nutty.' Unfortunately, it also gets him a lot of questions.

"Are you dating someone?"

"Are they pretty?"

"How did you meet?"

"Are you married already?"

"Is that really your business?" he asks, and they look at him like he's said something stupid. Then, Bruce betrays him.

"He's got a boyfriend with shit taste in Pokemon." Somehow the questioning gets even more intense, and he levels an ineffective glare at the traitor.

"I trusted you, Bruce."

"That's on you, Mr. Eliot."

"If I tell you about him will you be quiet?" he snaps, and they all fall mercifully silent. Another handful of people have crowded around, but that can't really be helped. "His name is Alec. He works with computers and owns the brewpub I work at."

"Sleeping with the boss, how scandalous!" Eliot smirks.

"Oh, he's definitely not the boss." If anyone is the boss, it's Parker. They would do just about anything for her, and she knows it. Luckily she usually just pesters him for food and kisses, which is hardly a sacrifice. "He's a good guy though. He cares about me a lot."

"That's gay." Someone says, deadpan, and the rest of the kids giggle.

"You should bring him next time!" Another says, and a lump in his throat appears at the thought of next time. Next time, meaning he would come back. Come back to a room of kids who look at him and aren't scared at all, who make fun of him but still want to play games with him.

"Maybe."

"Tell him to bring his DS so I can kick his ass." Bruce says.

The thought of Hardison losing a video game to a tween makes it all the more tempting.

* * *

When discussion comes around, Nancy leaves him in charge of a group of ten kids, including Cam and (traitor) Bruce. He reads the rules from a sheet of paper, and then, he listens. For a while, it's general teenager stuff, about calculus and driving lessons and applying to colleges, stuff he's no use for. Then, Cam gets the floor.

"I told my dad, since last time. It went better than I expected, but not good. He thinks it's a phase, that I'm doing this out of spite because he left mom. And I don't like him that much, I don't pretend to like him. But my mom, my friends, most people at school, they already know, so even though he's not really around, I felt like he ought to know. And even though I was prepared for the worst, it still didn't feel very good. I hate that I care, it's not anything he says matters, and he doesn't care about me. But I do care. It sucks."

"Do you want some advice, Cam?" Eliot asks, it's part of the rules, because so people just want to say what's on their mind. Cam nods, looks at him carefully.

"My father, he wasn't very good at being a dad either. He was selfish, mean, emotionally manipulative, physically abusive. But even now, a part of me still cares about him. Part of me wants to go back and tell him the truth, even though I know, just like you knew, it wouldn't end well. It's a natural thing to want. Still, it's important to keep the perspective. You're going to grow up and be this amazing man, no matter what he thinks, and the people who really matter, they'll be there for you." he says, echoes Parker's words from a park bench.

"It gets better?" he says, dryly, but the sarcasm is just a way of keeping himself together, and Eliot gets that.

"Yea, I know. Kinda cheesy."

"But true?"

"If you've got good people. I think you're off to a pretty good start, being here."

"Naturally, we're the most fantastic queers in the tri-state area." says a girl in obnoxious falsetto. It makes things lighter, as the discussion moves forward. Eliot doesn't say much else for the rest of it, but he listens and sometimes that's enough. Once they all start to leave, Cam walks up to him, thumbs in his pocket, eyes on the floor.

"You really think I'm going to be amazing, Mr. Eliot?"

"Well, you're already pretty cool. Very proficient at Apples to Apples."

"My card game skills _are_ legendary."

"I can tell. But you'd never beat me at a game I know how to play."

"Is that a challenge?"

"We'll see."

"You're kind of weird, you know."

"I've been told that."

"It's good weird though. Portland weird. You should come back."

"I'll think about it." he says, and once all the kids are gone and the messes tidied, Nancy takes him back to his office to fill out the paperwork. He does so, but he warns her.

"My job has strange hours. I might not be able to be here every week."

"We're not paying you, whatever you can do is fine. I'd prefer more rather than less, and we have a prom that needs chaperoning. I'll email you the details."

By the time he heads back to the brewpub, he's made up his mind. It's a commitment, and he doesn't know how well he can keep it, but it's a way of giving back to a community he's been fairly absent from. His experience, his pain and loss, if he could help even one of those kids avoid it, it's worth it.

Eliot just hopes Hardison won't gloat too much about it.

**Author's Note:**

> happy national coming out day, folks! <3


End file.
